


Safe and sound

by maybeillride



Category: Free!
Genre: Anal Sex, Body Worship, Bondage, Boston, But he’s learning, Doctor/Nurse AU, Emergency Rooms, Existential Crisis, Friends with very specific benefits, Getting Together, Haru’s coping skills suck, Hurt/Comfort, Light D/s, M/M, The way Makoto does it, Which should be a billable therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 07:32:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3928264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybeillride/pseuds/maybeillride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haru lies, breathing quickening, amazed as at all the times before how … comforting this is. How he’s in no pain, no distress, no fear, Makoto is sitting back now fully-dressed in his green sweater and gray slacks like he’s at a business meeting and here’s Haru, naked, hair mussed, eyes wide, unable to move. Completely under his power.</p><p>And the thought provides only … relief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe and sound

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely TheGirlOnFandoms and Daxii for your (inadvertent) help with this :)

The girl’s … just another one.

Just one more to add to the mountain of broken bodies the paramedics trundle from the ambulance bay to Haru’s team in the stabilization room. One more for a nurse to lean over and try – and fail – to get a name from. One more to lie so heavy, so still… The ones that struggle, that hit, that yell, are more troublesome, but the silent ones – Haru always has the feeling that time stretches when they work on those patients, when there’s zero unnecessary talk and the nurses and the anesthesiologist and the other docs move with him around the patient almost like cooks in a high-powered restaurant, speaking in a terse shorthand only E.R. staff understand, warning each other before the next bloodied tray rolls out or machine slides into place.

Haru sweeps his sharp eye over the girl, listens intently, gently touches her, smells her lips for alcohol or drugs. The nurses, very used to the “Japanese doctor’s” quiet style by now, work with him as he flies down the intake checklist, while they cut off her clothes, start a new IV, stick on cardiac sensors. His resident shadows him, wearing a tight expression like a sweater three sizes two small.

Teenager. Bicycle-car accident. Hit and run. Brought in alone, no I.D. Closed-head injury. Possible cervical injury, other bodily injuries – broken collarbone, broken ribs with no sign of internal bleeding – but the head always takes precedence. No response to verbal questions, commands; no discernable breath, oxygen levels dropping, Haru dimly noting the alarms as he bends over the girl. After the anesthesiologist pushes the sedative and muscle relaxer, Haru begins to intubate, the resident watching with undisguised avidness. It usually goes so smoothly, for him; almost like he can see the path, the vulnerable structures he has to ease past, without even needing the scope.

This girl is different, the way-in tight and unclear and dangerous. Her face suddenly beams up at him, a picture of … sadness, _loneliness_ , so small surrounded by the head brace and cervical collar, so pale against the respiratory therapist’s fingers as she holds the girl’s head totally still for him.

For a lingering moment – long enough for his team to look up at him in sharp concern, an eternity inside his mind – Haru freezes. The alarms chime.

Then it passes, his practiced hands regaining their unconscious rhythm and somehow working through, Haru announcing to the team that he’s in. The rest of the trauma slips by unremarkably, as they confirm correct tube placement, as they hurry her down the hall to the operating room, the respiratory therapist pumping the bag that’s breathing for her. But though he makes a complete report, successfully hands her off to the surgeons, goes through all the right motions, he is still _back_.

Floating in that frozen moment. _Drowning_ in it. Watching it spin through his mind again and again on some loop he can’t control.

Something must show on his face when he eventually makes it back to the touchdown room. Before he can drop into a chair at a computer or even acknowledge his resident, Sophia is on him.

“You okay?” she asks quietly, coming up close and giving his bicep a squeeze. Sophia doesn’t care that she’s an RN and he’s a doc. Sophia doesn’t care that he’s from Japan and probably not into violations of personal space. Sophia had basically adopted him his first day on the job when everyone else in the loud Boston hospital was so ... confused by his silence.

Haru just nods, but she’s clearly not satisfied, staring down at him skeptically. “I’m fine,” he says.

She shakes her head at him. “You did great in there, Dr. Nanase. You always do. Okay?”

Haru thinks of that little face again. That tiny face. All alone even in the eye of their hurricane.

“It’s nothing,” he tells the kind nurse, gently freeing his arm. “…but thank you for your concern.”

*

He stops in at the intensive care unit before he leaves for the night, where they’ve transferred the girl. The hall in front of her door is empty of visitors; her room is, too. She’s almost lost in the middle of the monitoring equipment and IV stands and ventilator and under the heavy white bandaging around her head. Haru stands for a minute at the door, watching her face behind the intubation tube taped to her cheek, the artificial rise and fall of her chest.

He logs into the computer kiosk outside her room and skims the surgical note, her latest nursing and neuro assessments. When the anesthesia and muscle relaxers had worn off, they observed her posturing, the telltale sign irreversible harm had happened to her brain.

If she lives, he knows, she will never be the same.

*

Haru sits on the train, leaning his head to the side against the Plexiglas, the rocking of the car offering none of its usual comfort. He pulls everything in tight – crossing his arms on his slim chest, crossing one leg over the other – his self-embrace a single thread of certainty pinning him down as everything around him shakes, squeals. It’s too bright, even with his tight-shut eyes. They burn against his lids.

The conductor drones the stop before his through a thick Boston accent, and Haru’s suddenly up, like his body knows something his brain doesn’t, slipping through the doors the moment they wheeze open and rushing through the station, taking the escalator stairs two at a time. He pauses blinking at the top and turns, goes into a bar half a block down.

The bartender is the usual Tuesday night guy, tall and broad and muscular, with a shaggy head of bleach-blond hair and a nice smile. He lights up when he notices Haru sitting at the bar, unmistakable in his pale blue scrubs. Haru stays focused on the way the tendons in his tattooed forearms shift as he sets his Sapporo in front of him.

“Rough night?” the bartender asks kindly when the big hands don’t move away, and Haru forces himself to look up. The guy’s big blue eyes crinkle in interested sympathy.

So much like _him_.

“Mmm,” Haru says distantly, holding the bottle too tight as he lifts it, hesitates. The cold feels good on his fingers – soothing – and he lets his eyes slide closed, drinking deep from the bottle. He floats in the peaceful darkness for a few seconds. The bartender’s still there when he finally sets it down and opens his eyes.

“Man. I couldn’t do your job, that’s all I gotta say. I can’t stand the sight of blood.” He grins at Haru. “Funny, huh? Me with all these tattoos. I actually had to get wasted to get ‘em. What a moron, right?” He laughs and Haru can’t respond, can’t smile. A customer bangs his glass on the other end of the bar for service – _rude, people in this city can be so rude_ – and the big blond gets up.

“…keep those Sapporos coming?” the bartender asks before he leaves, eyebrows raised.

Haru can nod.

*

It’s too much trouble to figure out the train, and the night is warm, and Haru’s walking the last few blocks to his place, walking straight and careful. He’s not really walking, though – he’s floating, his steps muffled in cotton and his body wrapped in cotton and cotton in his mouth and cotton in his head. Just … not there. He isn’t a doctor. He doesn’t work in an E.R. He’s just – a guy, here in this strange place by coincidence, a guy who is just visiting. Who hasn’t held life in his hands a hundred, five-hundred times. Just a tourist, here to see the sights.

Here, arriving at his apartment, fumbling with the door on the street and somehow making it up the two flights to his door. He manages to close the door and his messenger bag, scrubs, boxers mark an uneven line on the floor to his little bathroom where he turns the water on in the clawfoot tub. Then he slumps on the closed toilet seat, watching the white column churn powerfully down, the room dark except for the cool glow of the streetlight through the window. Eventually he gets tired of waiting, sliding awkwardly into the rising water with a splash and leaning back. He closes his eyes.

He’s back in Japan, back, back, he’s just a kid. Maybe six. There’s a bird in the backyard; it’s right under his parents’ window, lying in the grass. The little black head so … twisted, the beak open like it’s trying to sing but nothing’s coming out. The broken wing. It is so _wrong_.

He scoops it into his t-shirt, runs inside so fast he almost trips on the step up into the house. His mom is marinating fish when he rushes into the kitchen, looking up in alarm. First she scolds Haru for bringing the bird inside. But Haru clutches his shirt tighter, glares up as hard as he can. He has to get this right, has to make his mom see. _He’s hurt, Mom! He needs my help! What do I do??_

And his mom looks so fond, and sad, and crouches down before him. She holds his shoulders and her touch is vivid, warm and comforting, even if her words aren’t. _There’s nothing TO do, dear._

Haru jerks awake at the sound of the overflow drain spluttering. His eyes flutter open to the sight of his toes bobbing, the water closing in on the edge. He mindlessly reaches out and fumbles the tap off with his foot, then it’s quiet in the tiled room, except for his breathing, which doesn’t sound at all like him. Too loud. Like a box being shoved quickly back and forth across a concrete floor; harsh and grating.

He lifts his hands to his eyes and pushes the heels of his palms in tight, draws in air and exhales stubbornly, until it sounds like him again. The blackness behind his eyes is too hard to let go of so that’s where he stays, just his head and hands peeking above the water, until he falls asleep.

*

Haru calls in sick the next morning, standing in a pair of boxers looking over the dawn street below. He doesn’t need to make explanations or excuses; the department manager just tells him to take care of himself, and that they’ll see him when he’s back for his next shift in a few days.

He disconnects and holds his smartphone, staring down at the picture on his homescreen.

Makoto hadn’t known that he’d taken his picture. They were on a rushed dinner break; the charge nurse had shoved hard on Makoto’s shoulders, grousing that if he didn’t take his dinner he had a one-way ticket to a medical error – and even then Makoto protested. Then she had motioned for him to lean in to her, and Haru flawlessly pretended not to listen at his computer.

“…and take the intern with you, too. We can spare him. Apparently he’s as terrible as you about skipping breaks.” Haru continued typing gibberish into his progress note that he’d have to go back and erase later, holding his breath through a long pause in their low-voiced conversation. Then –

“He looks like he could use a friend, honey. Just sticking my nose where it’s not wanted, but you know I’m right. And brilliant.”

And then Haru had heard this … _laugh_. Oh, this most-beautiful laugh, no less-pretty because Makoto was trying to stifle it to not bother the E.R. staff working in the touchdown room. Totally exotic in this serious place, where people came at their worst, and here this nurse was just shamelessly, happily laughing.

“Ah Phyllis, you forgot to add ‘gorgeous,’” came his smooth voice, and then he was suddenly at Haru’s side, standing patiently and smiling down as Haru blinked stupidly up, his keysmash splayed across the screen. Caught.

“Can I take you out to dinner, Nanase-san?” he asked. In Japanese. And Haru hadn’t known if it was the silly mock-date request, the respectful address he hadn’t heard in months, or the perfect Japanese from another Japanese that flipped a switch in him. Or, quite possibly, if it was the way Makoto’s stethoscope looped around his powerful neck, the long lines of his arm as he rested his fist casually on the desk beside him. The welcome in his eyes.

“You are so ridiculous … Makoto, was it?” It felt so … free to speak Japanese again for something besides his calls to his parents, to know no one here could understand them. He smirked up, Makoto nodded amiably down. “Please call me Haru. And I’m reporting you for workplace harassment of your superior.”

Makoto had just leaned deeply over, eyes traveling over his screen. He raised his eyebrows at Haru when he glanced over. “Wow. That is one _sick_ patient you have there, Haru.”

So Haru blushed, like a damn kid, and Makoto disappeared and returned with their coats ( _he recognizes my coat…?_ ), and they trooped out and down the block to a sushi place. It was snowing, and the air was close, pressing the cold insistently against them as they hurried down the street. Makoto had held the door of the restaurant for him.

After Haru claimed he didn’t care where to sit, Makoto led them to the row of seats along the window, pulling a stool out for Haru in the corner while he went to order at the counter. Haru slowly took his offered seat, bemused – _God, he_ is _taking me out to dinner!_ – and just watched the easy way he interacted with the cashier, made her laugh.

The amused light in his (…green?) eyes when he paid and returned to their spots with two teas in his hands.

“How much do I owe you?” Haru had asked, but Makoto just sipped gingerly and gazed out at the people hurrying by in the snow.

“…I’ll let you know,” he eventually said, propped on his elbows on the counter and smiling to himself.

Haru took the photo on their way back to the hospital; he didn’t give it a thought, just turned in their conversation to look at Makoto – he on the inside of the sidewalk, Makoto taking the outside, almost protectively. The blazing light as they passed an Apple store fell on his clean profile, as Makoto gazed ahead, and Haru’s eyes skimmed over him … and he was dipping his phone from his dress pants and holding it steady, clicking the shutter, putting the phone away without Makoto knowing anything had happened.

Late that night, as he plugged his phone in to charge in his bedroom, Haru looked down at his old homescreen picture, a dreamy dawn shot of the Tokyo harbor he was particularly proud of. Again without thinking, he’d navigated into his settings and selected his most-recent camera photo to be his new wallpaper, without looking at it. And just stared down, the LED glow illuminating his face with this mysterious image, this soft smear of a man in motion, gold and honey, the sinuous lines of his profile carving his way through the dark and the snow.

It was on their fourth “dinner date” when Haru found out about Makoto’s interest in kinbaku.

They’d quickly become close – intimate, even, Haru feeling able to open up about his solitary time as an only kid in Tokyo, Makoto swearing he was done with relationships after a fiery “one that got away” who’d gone to Australia to swim competitively. Haru’d listened raptly, like they were having storytimes instead of rushed and too-short breaks, fully understanding the kind man’s heartbreak somehow. For his part, Makoto was so quiet as Haru hesitantly shared his side, the words pulling out of him awkwardly as he kept his eyes fixed on his empty plate. Eventually he was unable to go on, his conflicting feelings too messy to shove into words, and he fell silent.

They were at a busy cafeteria-style place, and at first Haru thought he’d misheard the big man’s question in the general din. “Pardon?” he asked politely, sipping his coffee.

Makoto had leaned in close across their table on his elbows, like he hadn’t wanted Haru to mishear him again. “Have you ever tried being … intimate while using restraints? Kinbaku?”

Haru’s first urge had been to laugh but he beat it back, and he just as politely said no. And that was when Makoto finally let him know what he would like as payback for that first dinner date.

*

Haru decides he’s going to call him at 9:00 this morning, curling crosslegged on his bed and trying to draw to pass the hours until then. He uses his big, cheap pad of newsprint instead of his sketchbook, almost like he knows what he can produce now won’t be worth keeping; and his instincts are right, the charcoal lines thick and angry in his hand, the scenes confused and unsettling. Like a bad dream. He finally tears every sheet off the pad and throws them away.

He leaves his room at nine, stands in the living room again staring down at the street as he pulls up Makoto’s number. It rings twice, three times. Haru’s about to hang up when the tone slides away and there he is, out of breath. Concerned.

“Haru – ! What’s going on?”

Haru’s heart feels too big, out of control, beating too fast and recklessly than sounds normal for a human man. He knows that’s totally crazy, that he can guess his pulse to within five beats if he wants to, but he can’t shake the thought.

“…Makoto. Could I come over tonight? Are you free?”

Makoto knows. Makoto always knows. Haru’s voice is pulled like a guitar string that’s been tuned so high it’s going to snap. He can’t hide this. “Haru, no. Let’s not wait ‘til tonight. Can we meet at my place, say in an hour?” There’s a muffled interruption as it sounds like Makoto’s talking to someone, then he’s back. “Would that be okay for you?”

“Am I getting you from something? You aren’t at work, are you?”

Makoto laughs, lightly, dismissively. “Oh, God no. It’s a nursing conference on the latest in emergency med techniques, but I can tell already it’s gonna be a waste. You’d be saving me by giving me a reason to get out of here. I can always make up the credits later.” He pauses. “After all, I already know all this stuff. I worked with you.”

Haru swallows thickly. He can’t pull Makoto away from something he probably paid hundreds for, out of his own pocket, for his own stupid crisis. For his _irrational_ crisis. Just because he needs this warm solid man with him and can’t wait eight extra hours. But at the same time he knows he really isn’t sure he can wait eight hours for Makoto. Time has become unreliable since yesterday, and if he doesn’t take his friend up on his kind offer, he isn’t sure what might happen next.

“Yes,” he blurts. “Yes, I’ll see you at your place in an hour … thank you, Makoto.”

There’s the ambient sound of doors whooshing open, an echo like Makoto has already made it into a foyer. “You know it’s always my pleasure, Haru.”

Haru disconnects quickly and hurries to get dressed.

*

Makoto opens his apartment door immediately like he’s standing at it when Haru knocks, and just holds it open for a second, looking him over with laser-focus. Haru knows exactly what he’s doing. He does the same countless times every shift, after all.

He finally can’t take the discomfort any longer, this feeling that those thoughtful eyes assessing him are uncovering all his secrets, that he’ll be left with nothing he can hide behind. So he comes out sounding harsher than he means. “So what’s your nursing diagnosis, then?” he asks snidely, then closes his mouth with a click.

Makoto is completely unfazed, smiling at him like Haru’s just told a fabulous joke instead of rudely insulting his gracious host. “That’s so easy! It’s that doctors are arrogant pricks.” Haru blinks up at him and Makoto laughs softly, taking a step closer so they’re toe-to-toe. “Present company excepted. Especially when you sound like you did on the phone, Haru.” He eases one arm around, hand curling on Haru’s opposite hip, and does the same with his other arm, and Haru’s snugged in a warm criss-crossed embrace, and it’s pure comfort. He absentmindedly runs his hands down Makoto’s lapels – he apparently hasn’t had a chance to change out of his sportcoat from the conference, and Haru loves when he sees him in dress clothes. It’s a rare occurrence, just the few times Makoto was able to convince him to go out to dinner; his birthday earlier this year when Makoto surprised him with tickets to _The Tempest._ He just … becomes something even bigger in a suit. Like he could be the CEO of Brigham  & Women’s instead of “just another” RN there.

“I wanna pay for the conference you’re missing,” Haru says suddenly, moving his hands to the soft, slim sweater Makoto’s wearing under the jacket, green like his eyes. “You have to tell me how much it was.”

Makoto _tsks_ above him and a chin settles on the top of his head. “No way. You even try to pay me, I’ll take your check and … ummm … eat it. You don’t want that, right?” His jawbone shakes on Haru’s head as he laughs.

“No CPR for me today, thanks,” Haru jokes, then freezes at his own words, pulling his head away and dislodging Makoto. He focuses on the bamboo floor of the entryway, swallowing.

“Do you want to come in?” Makoto finally asks, quietly, and Haru is able to nod. He finds himself being led into Makoto’s little bedroom, the sight alone comforting in its familiarity, in the deep plum of the walls, the unusual watercolors and bold black and white photos and collages framed all around, by his many friends who wanted to give him something special. Mid-morning, the room is flooded with sunlight from the one big window, and the color is so rich Haru can almost taste fruit on his tongue, the low bed soft as Makoto guides him to sit.

It’s Haru’s favorite place.

He shrugs off the sportcoat, draping it over the back of a chair, and turns back to face Haru, bringing the chair with him and sitting to face the bed. His handsome face is serious, solemn, but his eyes are fixed on Haru’s with an intensity that has him playing with the seam on his jeans.

“Please go ahead and get undressed, Haru,” Makoto finally says, his words a question and a command in one, and Haru is moving before he’s done talking. He draws the zipper down on his black hoodie, the sweatshirt falling open and sliding off as he gives his bare shoulders a little shrug. He crosses his arms at his abdomen and grabs his tank top, flips it over his head and behind him. Stands. Pushes his jeans to the floor, pushes his boxers to the floor. The movements somehow soothing, in their mindlessness. Makoto’s eyes stay on his throughout, their green shading dark.

“Thank you. Please shift up, lie comfortably on the bed.” Makoto stands, waits as Haru unthinkingly crawls onto the bed, lies back in the pillows. He knows he won’t be staying like this long. Makoto stands at the foot of the bed for a few moments, gazing down at him, and from his place far below Haru can only think, distantly, _power. Makoto is_ so _powerful._

And he’s so still, calm, giving Haru a firm nod like he’s approving of what he sees, and turns to take a wide wooden box from a closet shelf. Haru watches, hands obediently at his sides, the room warm even on his naked skin, as Makoto finishes with what he’s doing and comes to his side. He holds a few bunched coils of black silk rope, and Haru blinks slowly up at him in complete trust.

Makoto pauses before he makes a move. “Do you want this, Haru?”

Haru is in such a state beyond words, anticipation and deep relaxation somersaulting in his mind, in his chest, it’s difficult to answer him. “Yes.”

“What do you want, Haru?” His voice is low, soft. Strong.

Haru forces it out. “I want you to do what you want with me. Please.”

Makoto reaches out then, runs a warm hand down his bicep like he can’t stand not touching for so long. “And do you trust me?”

Haru nods, freely, even as the words still have trouble coming. “Yes. Of course I do.”

Makoto nods back, sliding onto the bed beside him like Haru does at the hospital, when he follows up with patients who’ve been admitted… But he pushes the thought firmly away.

“You can tell me to stop anytime, for anything, and I’ll stop, Haru. This is all about you. Alright?”

Haru nods again, vigorously this time, and knows Makoto needs to hear it too. “Alright.”

And Makoto … takes over for him. Treats him like a doll he’s posing, a giant, pliable doll, and Haru complies with his commands, spreading his thighs wide to where they almost lie flat on the bedspread. He gently bends Haru’s right leg in, bringing the calf into his lean thigh, and methodically goes to work, twisting one coil of rope between his shin and upper thigh again and again, the silk cool on Haru’s skin. He ties the ends and Haru floats on the bed, the stretch in his groin and hip and thigh and knee so strong, he can almost see the long muscle fibers flexing and pulling. And _relaxing_. Makoto lays a light kiss on his bent knee and moves to the other leg, binding it quickly, kissing that knee.

He rests a hand on Haru’s tensed abdomen. “Are you okay?”

Haru nods. No words this time. “Mmmm.”

But that’s enough for Makoto, as he nods back, turns and retrieves the longest coil. This part is far more complicated, as he begins to weave a simple yet strong binding that uses Haru’s whole torso for leverage. Looping around Haru’s neck; into a central knot on his breastbone; sweeping to the right and left across his chest, over his nipples; knotting in his armpits before looping around his upper arms; coming back around to knot down, down between his ribs; sweeping to the right and left to secure his elbows to his sides. Repeating, over and over, until the ropes feel substantial enough, thick enough to be a part of him, part of his skin. Pulled taut. Not tight enough to cut off his circulation; he can feel his little toes, his pinky fingers, the prickles of sensation rising and falling on his scalp. But … incapacitated.

Haru lies, breathing quickening, amazed as at all the times before how … comforting this is. How he’s in no pain, no distress, no fear, Makoto is sitting back now fully-dressed in his green sweater and gray slacks like he’s at a business meeting and here’s Haru, naked, hair mussed, eyes wide, unable to move. Completely under his power.

And the thought provides only … relief.

“Mmmm,” Makoto says thoughtfully. Long moments have stretched by, Haru simply breathing and watching the beautiful man sitting back on the bed next to him. Haru has the sudden impulse to make a joke, to compliment him on his bondage skills, maybe ask if that was a unit in nursing school. Stupid stuff, that he’s probably said before. But he stays silent. There’s something about the moment now, the calm drifting slowly out of Makoto, moving to bend over Haru with hands braced on either side of his bare torso.

“Haru,” Makoto says, then stops, abruptly. Haru frowns. The man over him starts again. “Have I ever told you what I thought about you when I first saw you?”

Haru’s frown deepens, in concentration, as he tries to fight through his relaxed haze to remember. Makoto gets a playful look for a moment, like Haru-in-thought is _cute_ , and finishes his lean to warmly fit his lips to Haru’s. They kiss, and Makoto is in no rush with him, his bigger mouth engulfing Haru’s small one, covering it like a kotatsu on a cold winter night. The _feel_ … it’s such a trick of perception, take away his ability to sense with the rest of his body, with his hands, and his lips suddenly feel like they’ve taken up all the nerve endings that are being held captive in the rest of him.

“….mmmh!” Haru finally moans and Makoto pulls away, eyes glimmering. He pushes back all the way and climbs back onto the bed, kneeling between Haru’s spread thighs. The passing brush of his dress pants against Haru’s flexed feet is enough to send threads of fire racing along his legs, to his cock, his hole; his inputs completely out of their usual proportion. The long smirk on Makoto’s face sends more.

“Well. When I first saw you…” The shaggy head descends, and Makoto’s fitting his lips on one pectoral, sucking insistently at his nipple through the rope, hands brushing Haru’s sides where they’re braced on the bed. And Haru turns his head helplessly on the pillow, the sensations tickling and dancing into him, the wet from his mouth both too hot and too cold and maddening in its _not-enough_. He pulls up, gives the same teasing treatment to the other side. The tight weave of Makoto’s pants drags against his hardening cock, Makoto moving in the slightest shifts forward, back, seemingly innocent.

“Ohhh, oh, Mmmakoto,” Haru murmurs, eyes closed and drifting in the sensations behind his eyelids. The mouth pulls away from his chest.

“It was that first day your group was assigned to us. Phyllis the charge nurse was so funny. She was saying we should make bets on which one of you would drop out first. She’s a tough broad.” An amused, light laugh. Almost a giggle. Makoto’s happy-laugh. “She was saying we should bet on you at first. Because you – you were solo, you weren’t talking to anyone.” Little kisses come down, one on his left shoulder, one on his right. One on each cheekbone, just under his eyes. “But I made a case for you. I said, no, just look at the way this guy practices. He doesn’t even look like he’s thinking about this stuff! Just takes everything in on a patient, like he’s learning everything there is to know.” A kiss on his forehead; he can feel Makoto’s lips when they’re gone.

“This is a guy who knows medicine, from the gut, not from a book. And damn if I wasn’t right.”

Now Haru can’t resist a little incredulous _pffft_ and Makoto just laughs again. He blinks his eyes open to witness Makoto pulling back, slowly retreating down his body like some kind of dangerous predator that uses charm to distract its prey. “Now, I’m not a perfect guy. I’m … vulnerable to certain attributes. That you also had in spades.”

“Oh my God, Makoto,” Haru finally huffs out.

“No need to worship me, Haru,” Makoto says casually, through a grin, before laying a line of soft kisses slowly up his thigh, from his knee. _He’s following my artery,_ Haru thinks, the press of each kiss finding Haru’s femoral pulse, his head slowly approaching Haru’s groin like a jungle cat being lazy with his kill.

“…unngh,” Haru lets out in frustration, and Makoto looks up in delight, goes to his other side and works outward this time, from the stretched crease of his hip along his taut thigh to his knee. Haru feels it, Makoto hasn’t even touched him there and he’s already wet, leaking from his tip onto his flexed stomach. Makoto pauses with his chin on Haru’s knee, thoughtful.

“Your charms! You keep distracting me, you bad boy.” He bites Haru’s knee, lightly, and Haru shivers. Then he sits back, straight and tall over Haru, reaching down and pulling the sweater off, the thin cotton undershirt. He’s so big and solid and real, the muscles of his torso shifting and coming back to rest, Haru wants to reach up, play his hand over the curves above him. But he can’t, and instead of being frustrated, he feels … _calm_ , because he knows Makoto will look after him, is just doing this for him and won’t stop until Haru gets what he wants. Even if Haru’s stated wish was for _Makoto_ to find his pleasure in _him_.

Both things are true.

Makoto’s moves swiftly down – _he doesn’t want to keep me here too long,_ Haru knows – looks up at Haru, even as he slicks his fingers, even as he gently moves just his fingertips around Haru’s rim. And Haru’s toes splay wide at the localization, the pinpoint of everything to just that little ring of feeling that twitches uncontrolled at his touch.

“I looked at this guy, this kid, practically,” _and Makoto’s_ still _telling his ridiculous story!_ “He – you – were standing there, sort of apart from the other interns, although your attending was close to you. Like she knew something they didn’t.” Makoto is smiling back in his memory and a finger deliberately slides into Haru, and air hisses between his teeth, rushing out. The finger turns, twists, drags along his wall as it draws slowly back. “I was busy, okay? When am I not busy? I think I was on my way to debride a bad wound for some poor little kid, I don’t know. And I just looked up at this new batch of students, nothing special, and then I saw you, and suddenly I couldn’t remember where I was going anymore.”

Makoto’s two fingers in by now and Haru can’t believe he’s able to keep his voice sounding so normal. “Are – are you saying I turned you dumb, Ma-Makoto?”

Makoto snorts. But smiles. “Well, you were … so different than anyone there. Than anyone? I … I couldn’t remember ever seeing someone like you.” He’s stroking Haru’s erection now, just gentle, even pulls along his full shaft, back and forth. Haru’s hands clench into fists under him.

“Sure, you were beautiful. That’s almost not worth saying. So I stood like an idiot, and I thought, that may be the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Then as I watched you, I thought no, that isn’t it.” He slips one more finger in, circling around and around, and Haru’s … boneless, toneless, like he’s lost all will to do anything, really, even as he feels like he’s been injected with pure energy.

Makoto withdraws, just looks up at him again. “I thought, this is a man who loves being alone, who’s really good at it. He looks like he doesn’t even need to be with anyone else.” A powerful shoulder comes up in a shrug. “I wanted to see if I could prove myself wrong.”

Haru squints down, suddenly alert, words shifted from hazy memory to the sudden present, but Makoto’s moving them along, pulling up into a kneel over him. He unzips his trousers, reaches in and releases the erection that must’ve been almost hurting him all this time, so hard it pulls itself free of his boxer-briefs as soon as Makoto pushes the waistband down. Then he’s so serious again as he looks down at Haru.

“Want do you want now, Haru?”

“You, in me.” No thinking and no hesitation this time. His voice is shaking. He doesn’t care.

Makoto nods, pulling a condom packet from his pocket and opening it, rolling it down. Slicks himself generously, and quickly, and Haru knows again he’s not sparing any time on himself, that he can be giving to Haru. Then he’s sliding down, their pelvises fitting easily in this position, with his legs already stretched and ready for Makoto. Easing down, easing _in_ , slowly – arms around Haru’s shoulders, lips light against Haru’s lips, ready to kiss if needed, hold back to let him breathe instead if he needs to pant.

Which he does, at first; Makoto is big, Makoto is the biggest he’s had, one of the biggest he’s ever seen in life or on screen, and it’s never easy at first. He somehow feels the sweeps of Makoto’s thumbs over his shoulderblades even through the consuming burn, the stretch, and he focuses on that, on the firm half-moons sliding across his back. Then Makoto’s fully inside, their hips flush, he’s dipping down for a probing kiss, and Haru kisses back with equal fervor, making his lips and tongue do what none of the rest of him can. The tightness, the burn is easing slowly, as Makoto waits, and Haru concentrates on the _fullness_ instead, this strangest feeling of being bigger than he is, that he’s acting for something bigger.

And Makoto’s moving, carefully, and Haru nods up at him through his breathlessness to tell him yes, yes, this is good and right. Moving in Haru with such ease. There’s no awkwardness, clumsiness. He just strikes up this flow, this rhythm, starting with long slow thrusts that feel like they’re never going to stop, Makoto will just keep pushing in and in and in until Haru is out of his mind. Moving shallower, speeding the sinuous flow of his hips, adding a little snap to the end of each that drives a surprised chain of “…oh!”s out of Haru. He hangs his head heavily over Haru’s and Haru feels Makoto wrap firm fingers around his cock. Close.

“I – I’m almost there, Haru,” he whispers down, and Haru revels in the brokenness of his voice, and seeks up with his mouth to join his gasps to Makoto’s for the end. They’re rushing forward together, Makoto mercilessly jerking him between them, kissing almost violently. Haru groans into Makoto’s mouth as he comes, whole-body trembling against the ropes, Makoto driving into him.

Then Makoto goes rigid, growling into his neck as _he_ comes, pushing their hips together one last time. “…ahhh Haru…” he groans, then there’s just the sound of their traded pants in the bright room.

And Haru misses the odd comfort of Makoto’s heaviness when he pulls off almost immediately, takes Haru’s face between his hands. “You okay?” he asks, concern buried in his calm voice, and Haru smiles up at him.

“I’m good,” he whispers.

Makoto’s smile back is the kind Haru privately loves, the one that crinkles the corners of his eyes in pure enjoyment. His big hands slip down from Haru’s cheeks to his shoulders. “I’m going to untie you now, okay?”

“ _Please_ ,” Haru groans. He thinks, throws in, “I’ve been needing to scratch my balls this whole time.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Makoto demands, darting a hand down to tease and tickle his ballsack.

“Bastard!” Haru gasps, wriggling and trying to poke him with a toe. Makoto relents, going to work on the end of the torso rope. For his speed in binding Haru, he’s much faster releasing him, partly because it’s an easier job, partly because it’s clear in his eyes, in his fingers that he’s anxious to free him. When the last rope lies on the bed he kneels beside Haru, working strong fingers down each limb, across Haru’s chest, as he groans in relief.

Then Makoto is leaning forward, drawing a finger across one side of his face, then the other side. “You were crying,” he says quietly, and Haru blinks up at him in surprise, rubs his face to feel the same. Makoto shifts, lies down beside him and stretches his long legs. He rolls to his side and props his head in his hand, rests his other hand on Haru’s chest. “Do you want to talk about that…?”

Haru’s suddenly angry. Almost _furious_. He squints up at the ceiling, at the arc of a rainbow painted across from the prism hanging in Makoto’s bedroom window. He thinks immediately of that other ceiling in the I.C.U., cool white, that that girl would never look up and never see.

“It’s stupid. Fucking ridiculous,” he spits, looking straight up at the rainbow, knowing if he looks over at Makoto he’ll weep and won’t even be able to talk.

“Tell me,” Makoto says calmly. Haru feels the big hand on his chest softly stroke and work into the ridges where the ropes had been.

“We see so many people come in and that’s it, that’s the last place they’re going,” Haru gets out through the invisible hand at his throat. He swallows and doesn’t know why he gets to and she doesn’t. “And you’d think after all this time, that I’d be used to that by now … but there was this girl yesterday. Bike accident. Head injury. And no way she’s gonna recover. No identification. She’s gonna die alone.” He stops hard, struggling with the tears that are right behind his eyes now, and Makoto stays quiet, the hand just making its soft circuit on his chest.

Haru takes a gasping breath. “Why is it so impossible? Why is it all so fucking impossible?” His voice breaks and he brings his hands to his face, shuddering as he tries to get himself under control. Then he feels Makoto’s arm stretch across his chest, his other arm cradle the top of his head, feels the tickle of Makoto’s breath as he snugs his head down against Haru’s.

“…because you had a choice, when you were figuring out what to do with your life, whether to do something easy or to do what you’re good at.” Soft lips as Makoto kisses his cheek. “And it turns out, what you’re good at is really, fucking hard. Only the bravest and the most talented and smartest people can do it. You’re one in a million, Haru.”

“I wish we still worked together,” Haru says suddenly, into his hands. “I wish I hadn’t taken the offer at Tufts.”

Makoto huffs a laugh into his neck and Haru lets his hands drop, shifts onto his side. Makoto’s arm rotates easily around and they’re face-to-face, close, Makoto pulling him closer by the small of his back.

“Well, you know if we worked together we wouldn’t be able to do this, so there’s _that_ ,” Makoto smiles, and tilts forward to kiss Haru, like he’s demonstrating his point with a visual aid. Like the whole being nude in Makoto’s bed, covered in cum, surrounded by a pile of kinbaku ropes isn’t enough.

Haru’s chasing his head when Makoto pulls back, grabbing it and sliding his long fingers into the fuzzy hair at the nape of his neck, reveling in his hands’ new freedom to show Makoto what he means. “No, you’re right,” he agrees. He stalls, eyes traveling over the familiar face before him, big-yet-delicate, strong-yet-gentle, so impossibly lovely. He searches for courage. Finds it in his next breath.

“Makoto. I want to do more, more than just this. With _you_.” He releases Makoto’s neck, lets his hands come around to cup his cheeks. Makoto looks … amazed.

“If you’ll have me,” Haru adds, searching his face.

Makoto kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello you lovely people! I wrote this mostly because I've always been a fan of bondage and was mildly shocked I'd never written it, and had to remedy that situation, stat lol. I also was so interested to explore this idea:
> 
> What would be the reasons people want to do it, both on the giving and receiving ends? In Haru's case, him being a doctor "holding life in his hands" made him need some balancing times when he's totally helpless ... and that's a very good thing instead of a bad thing. In Mako's case, I honestly saw this as an extension of his nursing. It's caretaking, the way he does it (to Haru, anyway lol). And it gives him even more excuse to be bossy. Cause nurses are BOSSY (heh).
> 
> It was really fun to hang out with just Haru and Mako again with neither of them being dead or porn stars or something ;). Please let me know what you thought if you like, feedback of any kind is the BEST! <3


End file.
